


As the world caves in

by xRinsexRepeatx



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Hand Jobs, Insomnia, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:06:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25428880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xRinsexRepeatx/pseuds/xRinsexRepeatx
Summary: The tents were dark and silent. All, he noted, but one. Glowing like a heart, the medical tent had to be holding a lantern not yet snuffed out. His body tilted and headed for it as if with a mind of its own, the mind of a moth. He knew what he'd find inside, knew that there had been but a single presence that had been able to ease his mind in this place.Takes place at some point after the Morfin incident in episode 7.
Relationships: Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	As the world caves in

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There was no sleep for him no more. Since the walk started, there was no work, no work beyond hauling boats and building tents, tearing tents down and hauling boats again. It was hard work, but the state of some of the men meant that it wasn't quite hard enough, and it was not enough to settle him at night.

He lay on his back, staring up at the canvas. The others were asleep, their breathing slow and heavy. They were beyond him, and the constant loneliness that sat like tar in his chest threatened to drown him. It made the air feel thick, and he measured his own breaths against the ones that filled his ears in the silence, and his were short, quick, desperate.

It was a different kind of cold, this. It came from inside.

It wasn't long before he couldn't bear it any longer. Pulling his blanket aside and sliding into his coat and boots, he was careful not to make a sound. He didn't want to be wandering after what happened with Morfin, but like everything now all his choices were horrors, only of differing cadence. Tonight, he would rather fear on his feet than on his back. Walking steadied his breathing, or at least made him dwell less on it.

The camp fires were like a handful of lights strewn across the mouth of an abyss. Still, they brought him comfort. Fire was a kind of life, after all. At least in this place, stood against the dry shale and empty sky.

The tents were dark and silent. All, he noted, but one. Glowing like a heart, the medical tent had to be holding a lantern not yet snuffed out. His body tilted and headed for it as if with a mind of its own, the mind of a moth. He knew what he'd find inside, knew that there had been but a single presence that had been able to ease his mind in this place.

Even though his boots had lain heavy on the rocks, Doctor Goodsir startled at the rustle of his entering, looked up from his writing desk and turned halfway off his stool before recognition fell on his eyes, and the fright seeped slowly from his frame.

"Sorry, sir," he said. Goodsir gave him one of his pained smiles. "I didn't mean to frighten. I saw the light, sir."

Goodsir sighed, his features easing. He put his pen down, careful and precise as he did, then turned to face him again, hands clasped in his lap. "What brings you here, Collins?" Goodsir must have seen something in his face, because his face twitched, and he continued. "I mean to say, how are things? With you." A pause. Goodsir squinted. "Do you sleep?"

Even such a polite amount of concern was enough to make Henry's chest ache, like the ache of pressing on a wound.

"I couldn't say, sir." He couldn’t. Nights were long here, stretched and stretched. He didn’t dream. If he drifted off for a few hours or not made no difference; there was still too much dark, too little rest.

Goodsir frowned, and sighed, and got up to standing. He made so many faces, and fluttered about like some small, nervous thing. As a boy, Henry had caught butterflies in the cup of his hands, careful. He’d come across a rabbit’s nest once, the kits still blind and twitching.

“Do you have other symptoms? Here, sit down.” Goodsir gestured to the low table, and Henry went. He didn’t mind sitting still here, not with Goodsir’s quick eyes darting this way and that across him, touching his skin like the methodical dabbing of a cleansing piece of cotton. A hand in a fingerless glove slid over his wrist, sudden, sure, before a thumb was pressed to it. It wasn’t a particularly warm hand.

“Any bruising? Or sores?” Goodsir’s hand on his wrist pushed up his sleeve a bit, exposing the skin. “It’s everywhere, now.” Quiet. Soft.

Resigned.

“Nothing like that.” His heart beat hard in his chest, the places where fingertips dipped into his skin on fire.

"You're warm." Goodsir's hand grasped his wrist more fully. "Have you felt feverish?"

Henry did, but only since that very moment. Goodsir let go of his arm, instead pressing the back of his fingers into Henry's forehead, and there was nothing for him to do but close his eyes and lean into it. The fingers stayed.

A clearing of throat. The hand was taken away.

"I, ah. You're very hale, Mr Collins. I'd say almost everyone else here is running slightly cold, now, and I didn't realize--" Goodsir's expression flitted to avoidance, to embarrassment, to a sudden loss so keenly felt that it echoed in the hollowed out space in Henry's own chest.

Goodsir had come to him, on the ice. Had just come across him, but had stayed, had tried to make him feel not so alone, for a while. Henry didn't know if it had anything to do with himself, if it had simply been an act of kindness shown a man who'd needed it, or if it had been something more. If it had mattered to Goodsir, the way it had mattered to him.

No decision was made when his hand reached out to grasp at Goodsir's sleeve. It simply fell in that direction, like pebbles fall to the ground. He pulled at it light as anything, and Goodsir obediently came closer.

Unaware of its goal but driven by an urge to allow its impulse, Henry let his hand travel further, until it dug in under the glove and grasped at Goodsir's wrist in imitation of what the doctor had just done, the thumb to the pulse point. He didn't feel anything flutter underneath, just the frail softness of delicate skin. His hands were no fine-tuned instruments, more good for pulling rope and climbing masts.

He let his fingertips move across the damp wool covering the back of Goodsir's hand, to his palm, to meet other fingertips. He'd been right, they were almost as soft as lips.

"Mr Collins--"

He knew it wasn't proper to touch the doctor this way. But it didn't matter now. Still, his face heated and his skin prickled all over when he encircled Goodsir's fingers with his own and brought them to his lips. It was barely any contact at all, and Goodsir's hands were kind of cold, but somehow that slight touch was enough to burn him, to burn the chill out of inside of him almost entirely.

He looked up, having lost himself for a moment. Goodsir's eyes were already fixed on him, wide and dark, and he held an expression that Henry couldn't begin to name. But he saw that it wasn't one that begged his retreat, and so he brought his other hand up to cradle Goodsir's in between his own. Within a moment, Goodsir sighed, and put his other hand to Henry's cheek. Henry leaned into the touch, closed his eyes. He wanted more, to have those hands cover up every crack in him, to warm him up.

If the answer was no there would be a heavy price to pay. They seemed beyond lashings, now. The thought spread cold fear through him, but coiling through veins that had known the freeze of terror for much too long, it was almost balmy in comparison. There was so little left to lose. Warmth to gain.

Henry caught Goodsir's gaze, and brought a foot up to tap its heel against the back of Goodsir's knee. He came easily, took a half-step and then another, until he's as close as could be, standing between Henry's legs. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt heat like this, felt his blood run thick and slow, building pressure in his groin.

Goodsir's lips were parted, tongue flicking out. Just as the moment stretched too long and Henry looked away, Goodsir dashed forward, clashing their lips together clumsily. But he course-corrected quickly, kissed Henry hungrily, gripping his hair. It was enough for Henry to drown in, but it was a mixed relief when they broke apart and Goodsir instead moved to nuzzle at his throat, his attention shifting into his clever hands instead.

Oh, each touch was like the lap of a flame if he himself was made of wick, made to take that fire and keep it, keep it. A hand appeared as pressure against his hip, wormed its way under every layer to lay plain against his stomach, splayed wide going up, across, greedy.

It was as if the doctor needed to reassure himself that every outward piece of Henry was whole, as if touching all those sores and scabs and rotting gums had drained him dry somehow, and Henry was the well that could finally begin to restore him.

Henry didn't mind if that was all he was to Goodsir, didn't mind it at all. If Goodsir wanted a warm, living body beneath his hands, Henry had one that needed warming, that heated up with every inch passed over by silky fingertips.

The hands were arrested by the edge of Henry's trousers, coming up against it a few times, over and over ending up back in the same spots, like a wasp against a pane of glass. He should stand up. He should slip off the table and fall down on the ground, taking Goodsir with him. He should touch him back.

There was a sound from beyond them, the tent canvas bending to a sudden wind. Goodsir darted up and away, rabbit-eyed again, turning his head fast as a twitch to the entrance. Henry held his breath, and when Goodsir turned back what he'd dreaded had come true; there was relief in those liquid eyes, but also an apology that crinkled their crow's feet and drew the mouth beneath them tight.

"Perhaps," Goodsir began, and all of Henry's terrors closed in, "perhaps we should--"

Henry found his hands clutching tight at Goodsir's vest.

"Please." He didn't know what he was begging for. Knew that he shouldn't. Knew that he should let Goodsir go. And yet his hands only tightened in the fabric.

It was warm. He just wanted to feel warm.

"Don't send me off." He had to avert his eyes, felt them sting with shame, knowing full well what it seemed like he was asking. "I'm sorry, sir. Please. I'll just sit here, you can-- " _touch me_ "--don't even mind that I'm here."

The tent kept bending in aftershocks, but there was no sound of boots on rock outside. No one there but them. No sound but his own labored breathing, nothing that mattered but being allowed to stay.

A moment passed.

Gentle hands were laid upon his own, and eased them out of their panicked grip.

"Is it really--" One of those hands cupped Henry's face again, and coaxed his head back until their eyes met. "Why did you come here, Mr Collins?"

"I-- There's nobody-- " He fought to find the words. "There's a veil, like the surface of the water from below. Nobody else ever... It's not a place men go if they can help it, and I don't wish it on them, on any of them."

Goodsir's eyes were soulful, always almost filled to the brim with emotion, but yet once again Henry could not discern what the other man might be thinking. There was a sadness to him, a tired air that never left, but here was also a dark and bitter determination, and Henry could not fathom what the tally was. When Goodsir put a hand on his shoulder and pressed down briefly, he took it for reassurance, but in the next moment the man turned away.

But he'd only turned away to turn the lamp down, so that only light remaining was whatever could make its way in through the canvas walls from the braziers outside. It was barely enough to see the slightest outlines. Henry knew Goodsir returned to him by the rustling of fabric and the sound of his breaths, then the hand bumping into his arm and trailing its way up to the back of his head, matched by its brother landing on his neck. He reached out to catch them both, to keep them close.

Goodsir brought their foreheads together so that they breathed the same air, then put his hands over Henry's ears briefly, filling them with thunder. He stroked thumbs over Henry's brow, cradled his cheeks, held his neck. His fingers stroked their way down his throat, settled wide high upon his chest. Henry did not know how to touch him back, what would be welcome. He edged his hands carefully along the other man's arms, inch by inch, feeling out where the limits might lie, until his fingers landed in the nest of curls at Goodsir's nape.

This time, Goodsir's lips fell on his own like a wave reaching shore, unhurried and inevitable.

Again, his kisses trickled down to the base of Henry's neck, but this time he didn't hesitate to unfasten Henry's pants. He pushed Henry back, slow and gentle and insistent, so that he had to brace himself on his elbows. He pulled everything down, leaving Henry bare down to mid-thigh. Then he pushed the layers on Henry's torso up, exposing his stomach as well.

Goodsir laid his hands on Henry's thighs. By now Henry could make out the vaguest notion of Goodsir's face above him, could make out enough to be forewarned of Goodsir leaning forward before lips were pressed to his skin, right at the center of his belly. His hands stroked up and down Henry's thighs, warm now, and Henry fell back, down, overcome. Goodsir's tongue made a hot trail down to the crease of his thigh, drawing out the ice cold poison and leaving honeyed warmth in his wake.

Would it have felt the same if it had been someone else? Would Goodsir have done the same to any man that might have walked in? Henry didn't want to think about it. It made no difference. They were here, now, the two of them.

One of Goodsir's hands veered off its path on Henry's thigh to instead brush over and grasp his thickened cock, gently squeezing the head, making Henry's breath rush out of him all at once to fill him instead with feeling.

Henry rose up, curled in on himself like a caterpillar to clutch at Goodsir, finding his shoulder and anchoring there, face in the vest he was still wearing. He breathed in the smells of wet wool, of sweat and salt, and held on.

Henry loved him then, fiercely, sudden and urgent. Like weeds and worms love their wet soil womb. Like a ship loves the sea that both carries it and draws it under, without which it would never have been. Like he loved every breath of air feeding his lungs.

Goodsir coaxed pleasure out of Henry's body as if such feelings hadn't been among the many things left behind, with sure and patient hands, with heavy breaths in Henry's ear.

His hands were stinging from the force of his grip at Goodsir's shoulders, his entire body was coiling tighter and tighter, burning, molten gold splashing into every dark and empty space inside from those small points of contact.

He thought about what more would be like. To be touched with more than hands and lips. Being chest to chest and thigh to thigh, or maybe even closer. For Goodsir to light him up from the inside, to fuck him like a woman, to take his pleasure. Henry would give it to him. Wanted to give it to him. Wanted the doctor to pluck whatever he pleased from his body, because for each thing he took Henry would grow twice of it back in its place, grateful.

He could feel it coming, measured his breaths and clenched his teeth together as to not make a sound. He needed more, it was more than he could endure already; the steady pace of the hand on his member sped up slightly, twisted, and Henry unraveled.

He held on with eyes screwed shut, let pleasure tear through him with brutal intensity for an endless moment. As it faded away, he was trembling.

He didn't move from where his face was burrowing into Goodsir's chest, not until hands laid on his shoulders and suggested with the slightest pressure they move apart.

"There, Mr Collins." Goodsir's voice was loud in the silence. Underneath the polite, professional dismissal, it held the slightest breathless tremor.

It was an invitation to leave. Maybe Henry would have believed it was what was wanted of him, if it weren't for how Goodsir was still standing between his knees, sharing his air.

Henry cleared his throat, getting rid of the cobwebs of kept-in sounds. "And you?"

Goodsir gave a shaky chuckle, and even though the light was still too low Henry could clearly picture precisely what fretful smile accompanied it. "Oh, that's quite alright."

But when Henry reached up to cradle that softly haired face, Goodsir sighed, and when he pulled Goodsir closer again there was no resistance, and their lips met with soft ease.

The slightest sound was a roar in the silence. Even the weakest glowing embers were bright in the dark. And it was so very dark here, so very quiet, and the nights, oh, the nights so very long.

They had so very long until morning.

  
  


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**Author's Note:**

> the title is a song by matt maltese
> 
> comments and kudos are love <3


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